


Don't stop, don't talk, don't look back.

by TerresDeBrume



Series: FotSM Verse [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Elves, Fantasy, Gen, Light Elves, Resistance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 11:17:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the soldiers come in the middle of the night, not even the youngest one are naive enough to think it can end well for anyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't stop, don't talk, don't look back.

**Author's Note:**

> So this was written a while ago now, for Artsies because she wanted to hear about my OCs.  
> I'll be crossposting other stories I've written in my original verse in the next few weeks, and then, hopefully, I'll keep on writing for them :)

She wakes up when she realizes she can’t breathe, and discovers her father’s face above her, eyes wide as he drags her out of the bed by the collar of her nightshirt.

 

“Quiet,” he says as she stumbles. “And quick.”

 

Garrigue nods, still half asleep. She’s barely a hundred –they celebrated her name day two weeks past- and still too young to understand, but millenniums later, she will remember this - the pale, worried glow of her parents’ skins as her father shoves his axe in her hand and her mother picks her brother up from his cradle –Bruyère is forty two, and mother has to give him a bottle to suck on before he quiets down.

Garrigue follows her father down the stairs, and stifles a gasp when a splinter pierces the skin of her left big toe. She can see her father’s ears, flat against the back of his skull, the pale white glow of his hair as he drags her to the kitchen and the fireplace.

Now is not the time for noise.

 

“Quick,” her father repeats as he takes the ash tray out of the fireplace.

 

Garrigue watches her mother step into the tunnel she made Garrigue swear never to talk about, tears in her eyes as she hides Bruyère in her cape –he’s young, and small, and his body glows an anxious yellow even through the fabric.

Usually, Garrigue doesn’t watch her parents kiss –it’s kind of gross, and she always feels like she’s not supposed to see it- but this time it’s different. It doesn’t feel the same as it does in the morning, this time. It feels sad and scary and a bit like that moment in your dreams when you fall of the cliff, just before you wake up, sweaty and short of breath.

 

She steps into the hidden stairs, the blackness of it pierced only by her mother’s hair, but her father catches her by the shoulder –she doesn’t say a word, even though she knows it will leave bruises tomorrow. Now, she can feel, is not the time for protest.

Flèche presse her to his chest and Garrigue doesn’t understand, because they’re using the tunnel, right? He’s going to come with them, isn’t he? They’re all going together, that’s what mother said. She said it a long time ago, when Old Man Pignon came and pierced it, in the dead of night. She said one day, they may have to go through there and run underground for days. She said even days of darkness would be better than Prÿam’s dungeons, and Garrigue didn’t doubt her. She knows Prÿam’s soldiers already, unnatural things with their skin covered and no place for the sun to reach them. They scare her, and she would give anything not to run into them ever again.

 

But Old Man Pignon is gone now, swallowed by Prÿam’s white soldiers, and Garrigue’s father presses her against his chest, and his breathing is shallow and wet in her ear, and Garrigue feels tears forming in her eyes without knowing why.

 

“Be brave, Gariguette,” Flèche says. “Look after your brother. Your friend Rune will be in the tunnel with his sisters, take them with you and run. Don’t stop, don’t talk, don’t look back, do you hear?”

“Don’t stop, don’t talk, don’t look back,” Garrigue repeats, barely above a whisper, and she clings to the axe Flèche puts in her hands. “I’m scared father.”

“I know, Gariguette,” her father says, and there are tears in his golden eyes, too. “Now go. Be quick, and be quiet.”

 

The door bangs again, harder than before. The spells Blind Hawk put on it must have been broken through, and Garrigue can’t help but look up as the ashtray comes back over the tunnel entrance, followed by the sound of logs falling into place, the light of a spell closing access to the tunnel.

Her mother is in the tunnel already, and she glows the bright white of fear, her hair falling down her back, cascade of milk over gingerbread skin. Garrigue joins her just as she hears the door crack inward, her hands clinging to her father’s axe.

 

They aren’t rich –richer than some, but still not that much- and their house only has hardwood floor, old and cracked, and Garrigue see the boots run about the house, hears the loud thump of the soldiers sent upstairs to look for her and her mother and brother. She doesn’t know why. She’s never done anything. And when the soldiers came for Rune’s father, they left him and his family alone, so why would they look for  _her?_

But then there is the sound of metal against metal, a harsh breath, and a voice says:

 

“Where are they?”

“They haven’t done anything,” Garrigue’s father says. “It’s me you want.”

“It’s your blood we want,” the other says. “ _Where_  are they?”

 

He has a voice like a hammer striking the anvil, like the whine of a catapult coming to life, and Garrigue feels her skin crawl, her fingers twitch. Behind her, her mother is rocking back and forth, back and forth, and Bruyère snores, the sound loud as a thousand horns in Garrigue’s ears.

_Be quick, and be quiet._

 

“You might as well kill me now,” her father growls. “I won’t tell you.”

“Oh,” the other purrs, “I think you will.”

 

Garrigue sees boots shift, and the naked feet of her father take several step back, until a pair of boots vanishes from the floor. There is the clang of metal hitting wood, and Garrigue sees a pair of golden eyes look at her, a mouth open to shout… and then the sickening sound of metal piercing flesh, and the golden eyes dull to dark yellow, like snuffing out a candle.

 

Garrigue’s mother gasps.

 

“What was that?” The scary voice barks. “Where are they?”

 

Flèche moves then, and Garrigue can almost see the wide move of his arm, still holding the scythe he borrowed from Fat Mûre yesterday, while she puts a hand on her mother’s mouth.  _Be quick, be quiet. Don’t stop, don’t talk, don’t look back._  The scary voice swears then, and there are sounds of battle, Flèche’s body glowing with the red of anger and the white of fear, the pink of love, and the dark, dark blue of tears.

 

Another move, another blow, and Garrigue almost screams when her father’s face hits the floor and their eyes meet for the briefest of moment, before a hand clenches in his white hair and pulls him away.

She wants to stop. She wants to sit and cry everything she can cry, but Bruyère is starting to get restless, and he might start to cry any moment now. She puts the axe on her shoulder and tugs on her mother’s arm.

 

_Don’t stop, don’t talk, don’t look back._

 

They run.

 

 

Centuries later, the Dragonriders’ order is burning, flames bright and tall against the sky, and there are not enough flying dragons to contain the fire. She pushes elfling before her in the tunnels, forces the frightened youngs of her race to let go of the wall and push forward.

 

“Run,” she tells them. “Don’t stop, don’t talk, don’t look back.”

**Author's Note:**

> Any form of feedback is greatly appreciated, thank you! :)


End file.
